Schools prepare for Iowa Core Curriculum

Action by the 2008 Iowa Legislature will have all schools in the state of Iowa following the Iowa Core Curriculum at the high school level starting in the 2012 school year.

The Iowa Core Curriculum identifies essential concepts and skills for literacy, mathematics, science and social studies, as well as 21st century learning skills (civic literacy, financial literacy, technology literacy, health literacy and employability skills), that all students will be taught before they graduate from high school in Iowa.

The Iowa Core Curriculum started out as the Iowa Model Curriculum in 2005, according to Dr. Carl Turner, assistant superintendent at Le Mars Community Schools. At that time, he explained, Iowa was the only state without a state curriculum.

The Iowa Education Department was asked by the legislature to develop a curriculum in literacy, math and science, Turner added.

"When it first started as a model core curriculum, Dr. Wendt (Superintendent Dr. Todd Wendt) and I thought ultimately this will become a mandated curriculum, so we started working on it then," Turner said.

During the 2006-07 school year, district personnel started with the literacy core, language arts. As Turner and district teachers worked on the curriculum, they found much of LCS's curriculum matched well with the model.

One area, "Viewing," was not in the LCS curriculum. That involves "analyzing the effects of visual media on society and culture and how it applies." That component was added and the board of education approved the literacy curriculum in the fall of 2007.

The next year, district staff focused on the math core curriculum.

"We matched the core curriculum up to our algebra classes," Turner said. Some of the skills identified in the core curriculum were taught only in the district's upper level math classes. While the district has matched the math curriculum with the core curriculum up to the high school algebra class and down through kindergarten, work still needs to be done to match upper level math classes with the high school core curriculum by the 2012 deadline.

"We need to get some of those required skills taught at the freshman and sophomore level," Turner said.

The board approved the revised math curriculum in May 2008.

This school year, the district staff is focusing on the K-12 science and 9-12 social studies.

Turner explained the teachers and administration are currently evaluating the science curriculum at the high school level to see what skills need to be addressed.

From there they will move on to middle school and then elementary, to identify areas where changes may need to be made to provide a solid base on which the build the necessary learning skills to meet the core curriculum requirements at all grade levels.

"We're a perfect match at the middle school level," Turner said. "We do need to make sure at the high school level that some of the core curriculum is dealt with at the freshman and sophomore levels."

They hope to start evaluating the high school social studies curriculum next spring. A plan of action for the social studies area will be formulated for the 2009-10 school year.

The focus for students at the elementary level include reading, writing, speaking and listening, with viewing added for upper elementary students.

Students build on those same skills at the middle school and high school level.

"It has made us think about what we teach," Turner said. "We want to devote our time and resources to make our students ready for the world and able to compete in the global economy."

There are three stages in the full implementation of the Iowa Core Curriculum.

Schools are currently in the "Leadership Development" stage, where school leaders, including superintendents, principals, curriculum directors and teacher leaders, are trained on the skills they need to implement the core curriculum.

"We got a good jump on the development when we worked with the model curriculum," said Turner.

The second stage deals with content alignment with the third stage alignment of instruction and assessment.

Iowa did not have a required core curriculum, but rather had set standards with evaluation done with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

"Iowa believe in local control for schools," Turner said.

Since other states used a state core curriculum, Iowa was ranked lower in some comparisons of student achievements on a state-by-state basis.

The Iowa Core Curriculum, Turner said, "takes the basic skills to the next level."

"The study gets deeper, not broader," Turner said.

As an example, Turner pointed to the fourth year Spanish students at the high school who have worked with local businesses in translating information into Spanish.

"The students put to use what they have learned, and need to think at a higher level," Turner explained.

The skills are integrated into all classes, Turner added. Math skills are used in such classes as family and consumer science and industrial arts.

"It allows the students to apply the skills they learn into real-life situations," Turner said.

By July 1, 2010, school boards must adopt an implementation plan.

The core curriculum must be implemented at the high school level during the 2012-13 school year.

The elementary and middle school core curriculum must be implemented by the 2014-15 school year.

Ken Howard, superintendent of Remsen-Union Schools, explained the Iowa Core Curriculum to district residents in the school's January newsletter.

Howard said their administration and faculty are working to identify the core skills that are already taught as part of their curriculum and what skills will need to be addressed.

"We've always used the state standards and benchmarks for our curriculum,"Howard said.

"We haven't done a gap analysis," he said. "Right now, the administration team is looking at the processes and procedures we need to go through."

This summer the high school staff will take a deeper look at how the core curriculum will affect them in the classroom, Howard said.

"They will see what changes they need to make and how their courses align with the core curriculum," Howard said. "Right now it's a matter of getting our feet wet."

Howard added he hoped to have a teachers academy this summer to look at the standards, benchmarks and core curriculum.

"I think a lot of what we will find out is what the schools do now is pretty well reflected in the core curriculum," Howard said, "ensuring that students know or are given the opportunity to attain the skills the core outlines as essential when they graduate."